Thirteen Hours (23 page)

That's when she saw the damage to the flower bed. The ground
cover was scraped away in a broad swathe. She took off her dark glasses. The
palm prints were there, the footprints beyond, three of them before the edge of
the lawn. She judged by sight the distance between the fence and the damage.
Could someone climb over here? And land
there?

She walked on, looking for the garden gate, and found it. She
jogged over to it, an odd, hurried figure with a handbag over her shoulder,
pistol on her hip and dark glasses in her hand.

'I'm not white enough for her,' Fransman Dekker said when
Griessel concluded his call with Vusi.

'What?' said Griessel, his attention still on the phone.
'Sorry, Fransman, I have four more messages ...' He put it to his ear again.
'Melinda?' he asked.

'I can't talk to a man ...' Dekker said, in falsetto sarcasm.

'I'll be finished soon ...' Griessel listened. 'It's John
Afrika ...'

Dekker took two steps down the passage and turned. 'But it's
because I'm a
hotnot.
Fucking hypocritical
gospel singers ...' he said and shook his head.

'John Afrika again ...' Griessel shook his head.

'Such a great Christian,' said Dekker.

'I have to phone the Commissioner back,' Griessel said
apologetically. 'The
girl...
She phoned her
father. In America .. . Commissioner, it's Benny ...'

Dekker stopped at the studio door, pressed a palm against it,
leaned on it and bent his head.

Griessel said 'yes, sir' and 'no, sir' over the phone, until
at last: 'I'm on my way, I'll be there now.' He switched off the phone again.

'She won't talk to you because you're coloured?' he asked
Dekker.

'That's not what she says, but it's what she means.'

'Fuck that. She can get a lawyer, and she can ask for a woman
to be present, those are her choices ...'

'You tell her.'

'That's exactly what I'm going to do,' said Griessel. And
then the lights went out.

Ndabeni was restless. He drank the last of the tea, put the
cup on the tray and pushed it away. How long would it be before the people
arrived, before Petr had his staff awake and on the go? What was Mbali Kaleni
doing with his case up at the restaurant? That was where the action was; there
was nothing going on here. Perhaps he would wait another ten minutes. If no one
had arrived by then ...

Then the big room went dark, everything eerily quiet, even
the air conditioning off. Another power cut. Yesterday it had lasted for three
hours.

Pitch black, he could see nothing.

He had to get out. He felt for his cell phone, pressed a key
to light up the screen and turned it so the light shone over the table, picked
up his notebook and pen and got up. He walked carefully between the tables and
chairs, down the passage. A faint yellow band of light shone out of Galina
Federova's office. He walked over to it, saw she had lit a candle and was busy
pushing another into the neck of an empty beer bottle.

'Hi,' he said.

She jumped, said something that sounded like 'Bogh' and
nearly dropped the beer bottle.

'I'm sorry ..

'Eskom,' she shrugged.

'What can you do?' he asked, rhetorically.

She lit the second candle as well, sat down behind her desk
and took out a cigarette.

'I can do nothing.' She lit the cigarette from the candle.

Perhaps Russians were not into rhetorical questions. 'I'm
sorry, but I will have to go.' 'I can bring you a candle.'

'No. The
girl...
she was seen.'

'Oh?' The pencil-drawn eyebrows were raised high. He didn't
know how to read that. Vusi took a business card out of his pocket and put it
down in front of her. 'Please, would you call me when the people from last
night arrive?'

Federova picked up the card in her long nails. 'OK.'

'Thank you,' said Vusi. Using his cell phone as a torch, he
walked back the way he had come in, through the kitchen, where Ponytail was
counting booze bottles by the light coming in from the back door.

'What you do about the power? What the police do?'

He considered explaining carefully to the man that the police
had nothing to do with the electricity supply. But he just said: 'We call
Eskom.'

Vusi walked out of the back door into the alley, where the
sunlight was blinding. He heard Ponytail call: 'Funny. I love funny cop,' but
he was in a hurry and his car was up in Long Street, more than ten minutes'
walk. He wanted to talk to Kaleni at the restaurant, he wanted ... Vusi stopped
just where the alley opened into Strand Street. There was something he could
do, even if Benny Griessel said he didn't want Organised Crime involved. He
chose Vaughn Cupido's number and called him.

'Speak to me,' Cupido answered immediately.

'Do you have photos of Demidov's people?'

Cupido didn't answer.

'Vaughn, are you there?'

'Why do you ask?' suspiciously.

'Do you, Vaughn?'

'I cannot confirm or deny.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means I'm just an Inspector. You will have to ask higher
up.'

'Ask who?'

'The Senior Sup.'

'Vaughn, we have a man who saw two of the attackers in Oranjezicht
just now. If he can ID Demidov's people ... It could save the girl's life.'

It was quiet again.

'Vaughn?'

'Let me get back to you ...'

Rachel Anderson heard the click-click of a woman's shoes on the
garden path just metres away from her, and another sound, the rhythmic whisper
of fabric on fabric. The noise stopped abruptly, then she heard a sigh and
someone knocking loudly. Rachel kept her breathing shallow; she turned her head
slowly so she could see her feet. Was she deep enough into the bushes?

Again someone hammered on the door. 'Hello, anybody home?' in
an African accent, a woman, urgent.

What did it mean?

'Hey, guys!' the same voice barked, authoritarian. 'I called
you back, but you did not hear.'

A man's voice answered from the street, then the same African
woman: 'No, stay on the pavement, this might be a crime scene. Just go and tell
them at the restaurant I need Forensics. Shoe imprints, I want them cast and
identified.'

There was the sound of a door opening and a man's voice: 'Can
I help you?'

'How are you?'

'That is not an appropriate question. Why are you hammering
on my door?' The man's voice answered calm, timid.

'Because your doorbell is broken.'

'It's not broken. There is a power failure.'

'What? Again?'

'Yes. Can I help you?'

'I am Inspector Mbali Kaleni of the SAPS. We are looking for
a girl who is running away from assailants, and I think she was in your garden.
I want to know if you saw her.'

'I didn't see
her ...'

'Over there. Can you come and take a look?'

'Is that your police ID?'

'Yes.'

'When did this happen?'

'About forty minutes ago. Can you please come and look at
your garden? You did not see her?'

'No. But I heard her ..

Rachel Anderson's heart went cold.

'You did?'

'Yes,' said the man. 'I heard footsteps, around the corner of
the house ...'

'Here?'

'Yes, just here. But I heard her run to the wall there, I
think she jumped over, to the next house. By the time I looked through the
window, she was gone.'

'Take a look at the tracks,' said the policewoman.

There was a moment of relief as the voices faded, but her
pulse accelerated again because she didn't know where her tracks led. Then she
remembered falling in the flower bed when she jumped over the wall. Was that
all? Did the tracks lead here? She had stepped in damp ground; mud might have
stuck to the grass or the slate of the path.

She heard the woman's footsteps on the path again. She kept
dead still and closed her eyes.

Benny Griessel opened the big door of the AfriSound recording
studio angrily. John Afrika had told him to hurry; they were waiting for him.
The room was pitch dark, as it had no windows. The shaft of light from the open
door illuminated Melinda; she stood with big, frightened eyes, hands folded across
her breast, Bambi In Danger. He said, 'The power is off,' and she dropped her
hands. Had she thought the darkened room was a police ploy?

He went up to her and said with all the patience he could
muster: 'Madam, you will have to talk to Inspector Dekker. With or without your
lawyer. That is your choice. You can request that a female officer be present,
but you are not a victim; it's his discretion.'

'A female officer?' she was confused.

'A female member of the police.'

She thought for a moment. Then she said: 'He misunderstood
me.'

'Oh?'

'After yesterday's events, I only meant it would be easier to
talk to a woman about it.'

A meek little lamb without guile.

'So what do you want to do?'

'I just want to be sure it's confidential.'

He explained to her that if she or Josh were charged, nothing
could be confidential.

'But we didn't do anything.'

'Then it will all be confidential.' So she agreed and he had
to ask bloody Mouton where Fransman could question Melinda, because the studio
was too dark. Natasha brought in a gas lamp and put it near Melinda in the
recording studio.

Griessel and Dekker watched Natasha walk away. When she
disappeared around the corner, Benny pulled his colleague by the arm as far as
Adam Barnard's empty office. He had received a message from the Commissioner
that he needed to pass on to Dekker. He knew what his reaction would be. There
was only one way to do it: 'John Afrika says I must bring Mbali Kaleni in to
help you.'

Fransman Dekker exploded. Not straight away, as if the
implications mounted up in him first. Then he stood up straight, his eyes wild,
his mouth opening and closing once, then the jaw muscles clamped shut,
twitching as it all burst out and he hammered his fist against Adam Barnard's
door:'
Jirre-jissis!
' He spun around, aimed
for the door again, but Griessel had him, gripped his arm.

'Fransman!'

Dekker struggled to hold the arm. 'It stays
your
case.'

The coloured detective stopped, eyes staring, arms still up
in the air. Griessel felt the strength in the shoulders as he pulled against
them.

'I've got a son in Matric,' said Griessel. 'He's always
telling me "Pa you must chill" and I think that is what you must do
now, Fransman.'

Dekker's jaw began to work again. He jerked his arm out of Griessel's
grasp and glared angrily at the door.

'You let everything wind you up, Fransman. It doesn't help
shit.'

'You would never understand.'

'Try me.'

'How can I? You're white.'

'What is that supposed to mean?'

'It means you're not coloured,' he said, an angry finger
pointed at Griessel's face.

'Fransman, I have no fucking idea ...'

'Did you see, Benny? Last week, with the Commissioner? How
many coloureds were there?'

'You were the only one.'

'Yes, just me. Because they push the darkies. That's why they
are sending Kaleni. They must be pushed in everywhere. I'm just a fucking
statistic, Benny, I'm just there to fill their fucking quota. Did you watch the
Commissioner on Thursday? He only had eyes for the bloody Xhosas, he didn't
even see me. Eight per cent Coloureds. Eight fucking per cent. That's how many
of us they want. Who decided that? How? Do you know how many brown people that
has ruined. Thousands, I'm telling you. Not black enough, sorry, brother, off
you go, get a job with Coin Security, go and drive a fucking cash van. But not
me, Benny, I'm not going anywhere.' Fransman Dekker's zeal drove him to the
words and rhythms of his Atlantis childhood. 'It's my
fokken
life. I was just
so
big, I said to my ma I'm gonna be a policeman.
She skivvied her
gat af
so I could get Matric
and go to the
polieste.
Not drive a
fokken
cash
van ...'

He wiped spit from his lips. Griessel said: 'I do understand,
Fransman,
but...'

'You think so? Have you been marginalised all your life? Now
that you whiteys have affirmative action at your backs, now you think you
understand? You understand
fokkol,
I'm
telling you. You were either Baas or Klaas, we were
fokkol,
always, we weren't white enough then, we're not black enough
now; it never ends, stuck in the fucking middle of the colour palette. Now this
white Christian lady says no, she's not talking to a man, but she doesn't know
I can read her like I can read all the whiteys.'